most country people would have done them. As I looked up
and down the tables there was a good cheer, a grave soberness that shone
with pleasure, a humble dignity of bearing. There were some who should
have sat below the salt for lack of this good breeding; but they were
not many. So, I said to myself, their ancestors may have sat in the
great hall of some old French house in the Middle Ages, when battles and
sieges and processions and feasts were familiar things. The ministers
and Mrs. Blackett, with a few of their rank and age, were put in places
of honor, and for once that I looked any other way I looked twice
at Mrs. Blackett's face, serene and mindful of privilege and
responsibility, the mistress by simple fitness of this great day.

Mrs. Todd looked up at the roof of green trees, and then carefully
surveyed the company. "I see 'em better now they're all settin' down,"
she said with satisfaction. "There's old Mr. Gilbraith and his sister. I
wish they were sittin' with us; they're not among folks they can parley
with, an' they look disappointed."

As the feast went on, the spirits of my companion steadily rose. The
excitement of an unexpectedly great occasion was a subtle stimulant
to her disposition, and I could see that sometimes when Mrs. Todd had
seemed limited and heavily domestic, she had simply grown sluggish for
lack of proper surroundings. She was not so much reminiscent now as
expectant, and as alert and gay as a girl. We who were her neighbors
were full of gayety, which was but the reflected light from her beaming
countenance. It was not the first time that I was full of wonder at
the waste of human ability in this world, as a botanist wonders at
the wastefulness of nature, the thousand seeds that die, the unused
provision of every sort. The reserve force of society grows more and
more amazing to one's thought. More than one face among the Bowdens
showed that only opportunity and stimulus were lacking,--a narrow set of
circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive.
One sees exactly the same types in a country gathering as in the most
brilliant city company. You are safe to be understood if the spirit of
your speech is the same for one neighbor as for the other.

XIX. The Feast's End

THE FEAST was a noble feast, as has already been said. There was an
elegant ingenuity displayed in the form of pies which delighted my
heart. Once acknowledge that an American pie is far to be pre